Health Services Union members’ funds were used to “shout" former prime minister Bob Hawke a bottle of Penfolds Grange, a court has heard.

The union’s former media adviser Mark Robinson, who was giving ­evidence in the case against former federal MP and national secretary of the HSU Craig Thomson, said the union bought Mr Hawke a gift for speaking at a dinner it hosted.

Earlier in the day the court heard Mr Thomson’s misuse of union funds was far greater than anyone on the Health Services Union national executive expected.

Acting HSU national secretary
Chris Brown
told the Melbourne Magistrates Court of a “bombshell" meeting when they learnt the extent of Mr Thomson’s spending and that the union was in $500,000 debt.

Mr Brown said Mr Thomson played a key role in establishing the union’s finance committee and in deciding how union funds could be spent. He said there had been no written policy as to how funds could be spent, and he and others raised concern about the lack of information from Mr Thomson about its finances.

Mr Thomson is facing 145 dishonesty charges over the alleged misuse of more than $28,000 on HSU credit cards while he was the union’s national secretary and a Labor MP.

He has pleaded not guilty.

It is alleged on one occasion Mr Thomson spent $2475 on an escort while he was staying in a Sydney hotel and another $475 at a Sydney brothel.

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The prosecution has claimed Mr Thomson went under the alias of Jeff Thomson when booking and signing credit card slips for adult services and directed officials to account for such expenditures on union books as “entertainment" or “national office meeting expenses".

Separate factions

Mr Brown told the court there were two factions within the union and Mr Thomson was aligned at times to his replacement
Kathy Jackson
and the then-national president Michael Williamson.

He said when the draft exit audit into the union’s finances and Mr Thomson’s expenditure following his resignation was released, it showed irregularities and Mr Williamson and Ms Jackson objected to delving deeper into his time at the union.

“There was a lively discussion," Mr Brown said.

Mr Brown said that Mr Williamson and Ms Jackson had a “strong view" the investigation should be “confined" to the 2006-2007 financial year. “[Other members of the national executive and I] insisted and prevailed. Williamson would say we need to have some trust in the national secretary. Sweeping it under the carpet was unacceptable to a number of us," Mr Brown said.

He said he and other senior union members were concerned with the lack of information and detail Mr Thomson provided into the state of the union’s finances during his term.